FUNDACIÓN VÍCTIMAS DEL TERRORISMO 96 - ENGLISH

Juan Benito Valenciano. Those attending included victims’ relatives, Civil Guard members and representatives of insti- tutions working on remembrance and recognition of victims of terrorism. WHEN REMEMBRANCE HAS A NAME The day’s most moving address came from General Jaime Cereceda, whose own per- sonal memories became forever bound to that tragedy. “Some days are etched forever in a person’s memory. Days that remain intact within us, even as the calendar moves on, ” he recalled at the beginning of his speech. Just days be- fore the attack, he had received his commis- sion as a Civil Guard second lieutenant and was on summer leave. News of themassacre reached him when his professional career was only just beginning. Cereceda admitted that he had never ima- gined his second occasion wearing the uniform would be to attend the funeral of twelve murdered colleagues. Nor, he said, could he have imagined that four decades later he would open an exhibition honou- ring their memory. The Association’s President stressed the exhibition’s profound human value. “ A photograph looks at us. An everyday object speaks of a life interrupted. A name ceases to be a statistic and becomes a person,” he told those present. The exhibition, he explained, is more than a collection of documents. It is a place to encounter those who can no longer speak, but whose presence remains alive in their families’ and colleagues’ memories. For much of his address, he spoke direct- ly to victims and their families, especially those who grew up without a father or mother because of terrorism. He recalled the lasting emptiness left by absence and highlighted the strength of those who have transformed pain into a commitment to re- membrance. “As long as we say their names, tell their sto- ries and ensure new generations knowwho they were, victims will continue to occupy their rightful place: that of remembrance, dignity and justice,” he concluded. THE ATTACK THAT CHANGED A TERRORIST STRATEGY After the welcome, Florencio Domínguez placed the attack in Plaza de la Repúbli- ca Dominicana within the evolution of ETA’s terrorist strategy in the 1980s. The Memorial Centre’s Director recalled that the organisation then began a new phase, creating permanent cells in major cities and systematically using car bombs as instruments of mass terror. “In 1985, ETA decided to create cells in Madrid and Barcelona and use car bombs,” he explained. The scale of the change is reflected in Domínguez’s figu- res: “Between 1980 and 1984, ETA plan- ted five car bombs. Between 1985 and 1988, the number rose to thirty-one.” The massacre in Plaza de la República Dominicana was one of the most brutal examples of that new strategy. At 7:45 on the morning of 14 July 1986, ETA detona- ted a van loaded with 35 kilos of explosi- ves as a Civil Guard convoy consisting of a bus, minibus and escort vehicle passed. The officers were on their way to driving practice. As noted above, twelve Civil Guard officers died in the explosion and six- ty people were injured, including for- ty-three members of the force. The at- tack also caused extensive damage to nearby homes, shops and vehicles. It was ETA’s deadliest attack against the Civil Guard. The exhibition reconstructs the episode through historical documents and ma- terials that explain both the planning of the attack and its devastating human consequences. “VICTIMS ARE NOT NUMBERS IN A STATISTIC” The opening concluded with an address by Francisco Javier López, Vice President of the Victims of Terrorism Foundation, who focused on the people behind the data and figures. EDUCATION AND COEXISTENCE 27